Vice President, Data Platforms

Versant Media is seeking an innovative and strategic VP, Data Platforms to lead the transformation and normalization of our data landscape. This critical role focuses on establishing robust policies and standards for data operations, architecture, and engineering. The candidate will be the steward of Versant’s data strategy, shaping how data fuels innovation, engagement, and business growth. The ideal person will architect and champion the platforms, data pipelines, governance models, and teams that turn raw data from across our diverse business units into actionable insights. By integrating traditional broadcast engineering with modern data architecture, this role is crucial to integrating data-centric models into our content delivery and business operations. Responsibilities include, but are not limited to: Data Governance Set strategic direction for data platforms by guiding technology selection and lifecycle management for core data platforms, middleware, data warehouses, and data lakes. Prioritize and align the development of data products to support revenue strategy, including services that directly support business needs such as audience segmentation tools, content performance dashboards, and predictive analytics models. Lead the design of the company’s overall data architecture, ensuring it is scalable, resilient, and optimized for both live broadcasting and streaming clients. Data Pipeline & Architecture Develop and execute a comprehensive data pipeline strategy to ingest, normalize, and process data from a variety of sources across all Versant business units. Lead the design and implementation of a new central data store (middleware) to serve as a single source of truth for all enterprise data, ensuring data quality, consistency, and accessibility. Architect and oversee the construction of scalable and resilient ETL/ELT pipelines capable of handling both real-time streaming data and large-scale batch processing from diverse sources (broadcast feeds, digital properties, and subscriber data). Collaborate with data producers across all business units to establish data contracts and ensure the integrity and governance of incoming data. Data Strategy & Vision Partner with content, marketing, advertising, and distribution leaders to ensure data capabilities, including normalized data pipelines and centralized data access directly supporting business growth and audience engagement goals. Define a cohesive data strategy that aligns with the organization's goals for content delivery, audience engagement, and revenue generation. This includes setting the technical direction for all data-related initiatives. Stay at the forefront of the rapidly evolving technology landscape and provide strategic guidance to Versant’s executive leadership on emerging trends and their potential impact on the media industry. Team Leadership Build, manage, and mentor high-performing teams of data professionals across Versant. Oversee the budget for data platforms and allocate resources effectively across the various teams and projects. This includes managing hiring plans, technology spend, and vendor relationships.